It could have been any small coastal town in southern
Australia. Steeped in an atmosphere of life never changing and an air of
indifference toward any one who did not have the same blood pumping through
their veins as that which was spilt to first rape the local seas or transform
the native bush into firewood and fence posts. Like most small Australian
country towns the dwindling population consisted of the aged and the older and
therefore soaked with more worthwhile stories then the Koran, Tora and the Bible
put together. I was lucky enough to be spending time with a young woman who
knew one such old, old man in this town and we stayed with him for a while.
During the day I would drink in the natural beauty of the coast and ride the
swell born oceans ago along with the lines on his face and his stories from
storms and winds I would never see or feel.
The old man told me many stories by the mute flicker of the
television, the dance of candle’s flame, between slurps of milky, hot tea from
a battered old enamel cup.
The old carpenter showed me with a sweep of the arm a house
he had built in three months during his early thirties in which he sat as a
near 90-year-old man.
The old farmer told me stories of looking after cattle,
sheep, chickens, murderess billy goats and most importantly his kelpie farm dog
Dixie, who I could see looked after him as much as he did her.
The old man informed me that of coarse he knew who the
current surfing world champion is and where the ningaloo reef is situated as
his world is now the world the television shares with him. Yet he finds it hard
to believe every thing he sees through this window to the world, ‘how can they
expect him to believe this “air bus” will not fall from the sky?’
The old fisherman told me of nights and days fighting and
fishing for sharks longer then his 20ft boat.
The old traveller has see Europe, Africa and Asia but still
thinks Australia is the lucky country.
The old artist showed me the beautiful mosaic floors he had
laid out of smashed up, thrown away bathroom tiles.
The old father told me of the help he had given over the
years in as many different ways as there were many different young people. The
beautiful young woman sitting next to me a living testament to his help and the
beauty of his soul. And yet the old father laments over his birth son never
visiting and only calling when he needs money for his gambling debts.
The old man told me of the young women he had had the
pleasure of wooing.
The old solider told me as he sat up straight and proud how
he had lived here ever since the war in which he was a fighter pilot and high
ranking officer fighting for a country that he loved.
How as a young solider he had been a prisoner of war in a
German built Russian run labour camp.
As the candle light caressed an ankle criss-crossed with
scare tissue where a bullet passed between the heel and acheilus tendon the old
soldier told me how he survived.
How he ate a dog.
How the young soldier built toy planes inscribing symbols on
their wings in the likeness of the glorious birds he flew. The symbols the
children liked the most, the same symbols that lay on his mosaic floor under my
bear feet.
How the young soldier sold the toys to Russian peasants for
a soft potato or some other object worthless to us but life giving in a labour
camp void of food.
How a little peasant boy came to him with a pittance yet
actual money none the less and took all the planes the solider had made in
return.
How the poor mother had come crying and begging the Russian
guard telling him how the boy had swapped the family’s entire savings for some
wooden toys. The young solider told me how he had given the money back and let
the child keep the toys asking for nothing in return only to find a whole bag
of potatoes waiting for him the day after that.
This is how the young soldier survived.
For the duration of a story the old man found himself young,
strong, in love, on the ocean, in the field, on the battleground.. The light of
life fades and he finds himself back in front of the television, old and weak.
The old man asked me what would happen when his stories
could no longer carry on his breath?
I shed a secret, silent tear for I knew them to be lost.
Only to be carried on the sterile, dry breath of the history
we choose to hear.
I looked to the Easter eggs standing testaments of love from
children who knew him, photos of people only living in his heart and those
symbols on his mosaic floors.
My mind wandered on dreams created by that symbol, joined
with stories now alive in my heart with the old man’s telling.
How proudly and bravely men like him farmers, fishermen,
artists, carpenters, travellers, lovers and fathers had fought and died under
that symbol and symbols like it.
How with the death of men and women their stories and
probably history itself dies also.
That symbol.
The swastika.
